Service Dog Awareness Month
Having a dog as your best friend can make life more enjoyable with belly rubs, walks through the park and an extra cuddle pillow at night. While a pet dog can make life happier, a service dog can make someone’s life more accessible and possible. As we enter the month of September, it is a time to honor and bring awareness to all the service dogs who work hard everyday to serve individuals with disabilities of all kinds, including mental, physical and developmental.
National Service Dog Awareness month was originally known as National Guide Dog Month. Actor and animal advocate Dick Van Patten established September as National Service Dog Awareness month in 2008 after being inspired by a life-changing experience at the Guide Dogs of the Desert facility in California. What began as a single fundraiser launched to benefit guide and service dog training schools throughout the country, evolved into an annual celebration of the extraordinary work that service dogs do.
While many think of a service dog as just a seeing-eye dog or furry partners for the disabled, their workload goes beyond these two categories. Service dogs are able to help with:
Diabetic alerts
Seizure alerts
Allergy alerts
Medical alerts
Autism assistance
Hearing
Brace and mobility support
Psychiatric service
Service dogs are also used to help our wounded warriors that suffer from conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injuries and mobility issues. Not only do service dogs provide companionship for those with disabilities but they grant independence, sight, hearing, mobility and peace of mind to their handlers.
What’s the difference between a service dog and a therapy dog?
The main difference is that a service dog is trained to do work or perform tasks for an individual with a disability and a therapy dog is trained to provide affection and comfort to people in hospitals, retirement homes, nursing homes, schools, hospice and disaster areas. Service dogs are protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) giving them public access rights while therapy dogs are not afforded the same privileges. Therapy dogs can be trained and certified by reputable organizations, however they do not fall under the protection of ADA to access public places because they are not trained to do a specific job or task for a person with a disability.
To give more depth to the amazing work service dogs do for the community, we were able to talk with Tonya DiPilla, the Associate Director of Development and Communications for Canine Partners for Life, a service dog organization in Cochranville, PA.
Canine Partners for Life (CPL) was founded in 1989 and was moved to its current location in Cochranville in 1996. CPL stands on 45 acres of land, containing the Marian S. Ware Program Services Center, a state of the art training and kennel facility. This organization was one of the first service dog organizations in the world to be accredited by Assistance Dogs International (ADI) and continues to be a highly respected leader in the assistance dog industry.
But there are so many service dog organizations out there ...
While there are many service dog organizations out there, CPL is set apart from the rest because they train seizure, cardiac and diabetic alert dogs.
“Not many organizations train seizure alert or cardiac alert dogs so we definitely see a large number of applicants for those specific types of dogs,” says Tonya.
CPL also makes their own mobility harnesses to use with their dogs, which is a harness designed to fit securely on the dog to provide better stability to the handler while balancing, standing or moving. They also have a strong follow-up program where teams are required to submit reports every six months and be recertified every 2 years so they can be readily available to help with any changes that may happen.
Where do the service dogs come from?
As for the dogs themselves, they come from CPL’s own breeding program. “We are also an accredited organization through Assistance Dogs International and they have a breeding cooperative, so we work with other accredited service and guide dog organizations around the country – we receive puppies from them and they receive puppies from us,” explains Tonya. Being part of the breeding collaboration allows for CPL to receive puppies that are bred for the specific traits they are looking for in service dogs.
CPL generally works with Labrador retrievers because “they have the body style and temperament we are looking for in a service dog.” Labrador retrievers are received well by the public, love to work and are very food motivated, which helps with CPL using all positive reinforcement while training their dogs. Tonya says CPL will occasionally use golden retrievers, standard Poodles and mixes of those breeds. Their dogs start at 8 weeks old and go through 2 full years of training before being matched. Most service dogs will work for about 8-10 years on average.
So how do you make that special match?
While CPL has a waiting list for their applicants, it is not a first come first serve.
“It is important to find the right match for each person. We take into account the person’s needs, their lifestyle, their personality, etc. For example, if someone is 6 feet tall and will be using their dog for support while walking, they are going to need a large dog. If someone is a college student and has a very active life, we are going to give them a more active dog. If someone needs a dog to alert to their seizures, it has to be a dog that has the innate ability to alert to seizures,” explains Tonya.
With so much being considered during the matching process, Tonya says that they will sometimes have individuals come to campus to work with a few dogs to see which is the best for them.
But what about the dreaded C word: COVID-19?
As with organizations across the nation, the COVID-19 pandemic pushed CPL to close their campus in March for 2 months. All of the dogs were taken in by the volunteers in their own homes while training sessions were done via video conferencing. CPL’s Summer Team Training was also affected by the pandemic. This is a two-and-a-half-week training program that all new recipients go through once they are matched with a dog. While typically a large group training session, this program was done with video conferencing along with more individualized training for the in-person portion. Tonya says it was still a successful training class “but took a lot of extra planning as many of the individuals we serve are at high-risk for this virus.”
Despite the setback on large training groups, Tonya says that CPL found many ways to incorporate technology into their training classes and events, even when meeting in large groups becomes acceptable once again. “By using some of this technology, we’ve been able to include our graduates who live across the country and our donors who are spread across the country as well!” Throughout the pandemic, CPL has been able to have 6 service dog teams, 4 home companion teams and 1 courthouse companion team graduate!
“We are extremely grateful that we can continue to move our mission forward,” says Tonya.
Despite the pandemic, Tonya says there is still a huge challenge in the industry as a whole ...
While COVID has been a huge barrier to navigate, Tonya says the biggest challenge facing the entire assistance dog industry is the large amount of “fake service dogs.” People trying to pass off their pet dog as a service dog is making it harder for individuals doing it the right way. “Our graduates didn’t choose to become disabled – these dogs help them overcome the challenges they face in life. When a fake service dog goes into a business and misbehaves, that business owner is going to be skeptical the next time a service dog comes into their place of business and it’s not fair for our graduates to have to be questioned.”
While all dogs can give an individual companionship and an adventure, Canine Partners for Life’s service dogs can help give individuals with disabilities greater independence while helping them to achieve their goals and dreams.
“CPL service dogs truly change lives and it’s amazing to be a part of that journey.”
Check out Canine Partners for Life at their website for more information regarding volunteer opportunities, programs and their puppies. If you would like to donate to CPL, check out their website for more information on how to give the miracle of independence to someone in need!
Sources:
https://dogtime.com/trending/18316-september-is-national-service-dog-month
https://k9partnersforpatriots.com/difference-service-dog-therapy-dog
https://www.akc.org/sports/title-recognition-program/therapy-dog-program/what-is-a-therapy-dog/